Quicksilver shares dip 4% on fourth-quarter loss

Fort Worth-based oil and gas producer Quicksilver Resources said it lost $32 million in the fourth quarter as production declined with property sales and reduced drilling.

The company said that after adjustments, it lost $5 million, or 3 cents a share — in line with financial analysts’ estimates. But Quicksilver’s shares (ticker: KWK) still lost 4 percent to close at $2.66.

Quicksilver said its fourth-quarter production averaged 266 million cubic feet of gas equivalent per day, down 22 percent from a year earlier. That decline was largely the result of the sale of 25 percent of its Barnett Shale production to Tokyo Gas in March and the sale of its Montana assets in September, it said.

After accounting for those asset sales, production was down 3 percent, which Quicksilver said was “mainly attributable to the impact of curtailed capital spending.” It said capital spending totaled $99 million in 2013, $21 million less than budgeted.

In 2014, Quicksilver said, it plans $136 million in capital spending, with $98 million going to drilling and completion in the Fort Worth Basin and in Alberta’s Horseshoe Canyon, a coal bed methane play. The company expects production to average 245 million to 255 million cubic feet a day, with 85 percent of that natural gas.

Despite the asset sales, Quicksilver trimmed only $74 million from its long-term debt, ending the year at $1.99 billion. But its cash and equivalents swelled to $255 million.